Time Stands Still on Sept. 11

Time will stand still for me this morning around 8:45 a.m. when the clock will remind me that twelve years ago today, the first plane, a hijacked American Airlines jet flying out of Boston, crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center, setting into motion national events and policies that permanently changed the way we as a nation live.

All I need to do is look at a picture of the Twin Towers and it all comes back to me.  Not only the terrorist attack on the Twin Towers in New York City, but also the terrorist attack on the Pentagon in the nation's capital and the downing of the fourth plane in Shanksville, PA.  Here in Washington, DC I remember a surreal and scary day that was filled with school lockdowns and the constant sound of low flying fighter jets.

Today my heart is with those who tragically lost friends, families and their futures.


People gather in Union Square to light candles and leave notes
 for those affected by September 11, 2001 attack.  (Magnum Photos)

September 11 also reminds me that it's healthy to allow your emotions to come to the surface in order to work through them because in blocking a grieving process you block the efforts used to try and rebuild your life and find new meaning in a life that you now must live without your loved one.

Let today be an opportunity for us to reflect and remember this sacred day and how far we have come in our own ways. 

For a guy in my office, it is a day for him to remember that he was scheduled to attend an early morning meeting in the financial district of New York City on September 11, 2001.

The meeting never happened.

He and two of his clients were in a building near the World Financial Center and heard the explosions of each of the planes separately hitting the towers of the World Trade Center.  Immediately they went outside to find the eerie site of a clear, crisp deep blue sky filled with ever increasing, billowing clouds of white and black smoke.

He says that at that point he didn't know that the explosions were caused by planes crashing into the building because you couldn't see the planes inside the buildings.  People stood on the streets frozen, staring at the burning buildings unable to process what had just happened.  Sirens filled the air.  People ran.  People cried.  Cellphones jammed.  Unbelievable amounts of paper floated from the buildings.

My colleague and his clients started slowly walking uptown through the chaos and away from the Twin Towers but didn't get very far.  Eventually, they found their way into a hotel where they went inside to get more information.  Their timing was incredible because they were lucky enough to be inside when both towers shockingly and incredibly collapsed.

As the cloud of debris from the collapse of the Twin Towers filled the air and roiled down the narrow streets of lower Manhattan, it reached their hotel.  He said some of the glass windows and doors blew out as the debris cloud passed by his block and afterwards everything stopped.  Grey and white dust covered everything and it looked as if it were night time.

No one went outside because you couldn't breath.  The dust in the air was that thick.  Hours later, the three went outside, covered their noses and mouths with cloth napkins, and walked their way to Chinatown, spending the night in a hotel room my colleague had checked into earlier on September 10.

His September 11th ritual includes a telephone call to the two people he spent the day with.  For the past twelve years, my colleague and his two clients reach out to each other on September 11, no matter what part of the world they are in, and take the time to stop and remember what happened that awful day and how fate put them together.

They catch up on each other's lives, talking about each other's families and share stories about the unique events that have happened in their lives since they last spoke.

They know that life is fragile and they remember how lucky and blessed each one was to wake up alive in New York City on September 12 and travel back home.

May we all connect with the special people in our lives today and continue to heal.
 

Paying Respects @WTC

On a bright and beautiful Sunday morning this past weekend in New York City, I finally had an opportunity to visit the memorial site for the World Trade Center.

With my brother, sister-in-law and their 12-year-old daughter, we took a taxi to the 8-acre site in lower Manhattan where the infamous Twin Towers once stood.  The site is deceiving because construction fences surround the area and you can't see the two black stone squares containing the waterfalls or even hear the waterfalls from the road.  It just looks like a regular construction site.

Getting to the memorial site is a multi-step process that involves a free ticket (you need to go online to make your reservation and print out your ticket before visiting the site) and then passing through a number of checkpoints where your entry ticket is scanned and then a larger security stop where you and everything else you own is placed in plastic tubs and run through a scanner.  Once you complete this security process, you gain entry to the historic site where you can then walk freely around the memorial and remember that fateful day when almost 3,000 people lost their lives to the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.

Walking towards the black stone squares, I began to hear the sound of water falling.   It felt as though the water was buffering us from the everyday noises of the city and almost acting like a curtain, shutting out all distractions.  It is hallowed ground and people automatically lowered their voices and were respectful of each other's space as they visited.  As I began my journey to a place of quiet reflection, I thought of the horror of that day.  My relatives and I started talking about the names carved into the black stone surrounding the waterfalls -- the first responders, the people on the planes, the workers in the towers and also the people in the Pentagon who died that day. 

As New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg says in the memorial's commemorative guide, the World Trade Center Memorial is "a reminder of the enormous loss suffered on 9/11, but (it) also is a symbol of hope for the future."  The hundreds of people who visited this past Sunday and future Sundays come to honor and pay their respects to the memories of those who lost their lives that day but we also come to see how this part of the city is recovering and rebuilding after the devastation of the Twin Towers collapsing. 

And isn't that what grieving and healing are about after all?  Your heart is devastated, you can't imagine any kind of future because your loss is so deep and so painful, yet you put one foot in front of the other and minutes turn into hours, hours into days and days turn into months and finally years.  It is a slow and steady process of allowing pain, anger, frustration and sadness into your life and then working through it enough to feel stronger, to rebuild and go on with your life.  It's about finding resilience within yourself.

I have found that it is possible to experience the loss of a spouse and to find my way to a different life.  There are moments when life is bittersweet but I think it is important to have faith and to be positive about your direction.  It is not a straightfordward process because one moment I found myself to be happy and then a wave of grief unexpectedly would cascade over me.  After nine years, I still struggle but I work hard to get on the other side of the pain.

I drew strength from the World Trade Center memorial, from the simple yet elegant design that draws you in and gives you a sense of hope and also from the names of the victims inscribed around the pools which are set in the footprints of the original Twin Towers.  I also found inspiration in listening to a video in the visitors centers that features people who survived 9/11.  Each heroic person talks about what happened to them on September 11 and how their lived dramatically changed.

In their own ways, these incredible people found an inner strength that allowed them to overcome their tragedy and gave them the will to carry on and slowly rebuild their lives.  Their message to all of us:  you must keep your heart open to love, for life can be profound in ways you can never imagine.

 

Pause & Remember

Before the mantra was jobs, jobs, jobs, it was security, security, security.

The security of our nation, the security of our borders, the security of our everyday lives was at the top of the agenda.  No one could do enough to make America safe and secure.  And we were willing to do whatever it took to make it happen: reduced civil liberties, metal detectors and wands, pat downs, no shoes.

A decade later, 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden is finally dead as are some of his top operatives.  But how safe are we?

When the 10th anniversary of 9/11 arrives on Sunday, Americans will pause and remember where they were when they first saw or heard the shocking news of the attacks on New York City's Twin Towers, Washington, DC's Pentagon building and the crash of Flight 93 in Shanksville, PA.   

It was a horrific and terrifying day; a day when the unthinkable became reality.

It's a reality playing over and over again this week on television, newspapers, the web and magazine.  I have watched a few television specials this week featuring the live 9/11 footage of the planes crashing, the towers falling and people in NY and DC running to get out of the way of the attacks and find safety.  I think I've seen enough and will probably not watch any more 9/11 television because my memory of those events is clear.  I can flash back to those raw and gritty images all on my own.  The repetition of seeing the events is not a healthy or healing process for me.

Instead, I am looking for stories about people who courageously pushed through their pain and chose to rebuild their lives, turning their losses into the pursuit of a positive cause honoring the memory of the loved one they lost on 9/11.  One touching story that particularly stood out for me is the story of Jack and Lauren Grandcolas.  Lauren, 38, was pregnant when she died on United Flight 93, which was hijacked by the terrorists and crashed in a field near Shankesville, PA.  After battling grief and depression, Jack started a foundation in his wife's name that financially supports a state-of-the-art birthing room at Marin General Hospital in California. 

Here is a link to a short video and story about Jack and Lauren Grandcolas:

http://news.yahoo.com/pregnant-flight-93-victim-honored-by-husband-s-lasting-tribute.html

The Twin Towers, the Pentagon & Flight 93

When President Obama officially announced on television late last night that Osama bin Laden had been killed by U.S. forces in Pakistan, my thoughts went immediately to the relatives and friends of the thousands of people whose lives were lost in the Twin Towers, the Pentagon and Flight 93.

For almost ten years, these people have been trying to put the pieces of their shattered lives back together so that they may heal and perhaps build some kind of a future after having their loved ones violently taken from them.

 

I wondered how and what they were feeling now that bin Laden was confirmed dead:  relief, closure, happiness; maybe all of those things at the same time.  I'm pretty sure that as time has passed and each anniversary has been publicly marked, these relatives and friends have probably experienced every phase of grief and gone back again.

 

There is no official resting place for many of those lost in the catastrophic events of that day.  There is no cemetery marker for them to visit because there wasn't a body to claim and bury.  There is only the hallowed destinations of Ground Zero, the Pentagon and a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania where Flight 93 crashed.

Firemen, policemen, window washers, waiters, stockbrokers, investment bankers, pilots and flight attendants; all were living their lives and carrying out their normal daily routines unaware of the destruction ahead; unaware of Osama bin Laden's evil plan.  As New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said on the one-year anniversary:  ''They were our neighbors, our husbands, our children, our sisters, our brothers, and our wives. They were our countrymen and our friends. They were us.'' 

And the lives of those left behind to grieve were forever changed.

Each person who loses a loved one eventually comes to understand that they are on a personal journey that has no single path or prescribed time line.  Eventually, resilience can be learned and acquired for life.  Doctors say that good, strong relationships among family and friends and a sense of belonging to something bigger than yourself are essential in overcoming pain and suffering and starting the process of recovery.

Just as everyone remembers where they were when the tragic events of September 11, 2001 started  to take place,  most Americans will now also remember how they heard the long anticipated news that Osama bin Laden had finally been found and killed.  Neighbors and colleagues I talked to were filled with mixed emotions.  Initially, they were happy but then on reflection they were filled with sadness and fear for they said they know that the finality of this act for bin Laden doesn't put an end to the possibility of more acts of terrorism.

In Rome today, The Vatican issued a statement that came surprisingly close to striking the right tone:  "Osama bin Laden, as we all know, bore the most serious responsibility for spreading divisions and hatred among populations, causing the deaths of innumerable people, and manipulating religions for this purpose."

"In the face of a man's death, a Christian never rejoices, but reflects on the serious responsibilities of each person before God and before men, and hopes and works so that every event may be the occasion for the further growth of peace and not of hatred."